There’s just a few days until Glastonbury Festival 2009, and remarkably the forecast is looking excellent. And I don’t just mean the weather – although even that is looking thrillingly dry, and even – touch wood – rather summery.

This time last year Glastonbury was in a dark place. Ticket sales had been sluggish, security levels were rising to terrorist-threat airport standards, the line up had been ridiculed in some quarters – Noel Gallagher famously laying into Jay-Z as a headliner – and the weather was hinting at being a repeat of 2007 where Worthy Farm descended into acres of hellish, muddy quagmire.

This year Glastonbury really feels back on track. The line-up may be a little too middle-aged for some – even Rolf Harris, notorious for pulling some of the biggest crowds ever seen at the event, is returning – but having big hitters like Bruce Springteen, Neil Young and Blur topping the bill is firmly placing the event back in safe hands.

The rumour mill is already spinning furiously too: Klaxons, The Libertines, Kanye West, N*E*R*D and even Coldplay have all been mooted as possibles. Klaxons and The Libertines look the most possible of the bunch – they’re both certainly in the country around the weekend.

If you’re going, take a look at the full set of pics on the Glasto site – the blue skies suggest we may actually be in for sunshine and minimal mud. My first Glastonbury was in 1995 and was so hot that by the time Verve (no ‘The’ in those days, as I recall) and The Charlatans played on the Sunday everyone resembled ‘Brits abroad’ – with red faces, peeling shoulders, topless sunbathers and t-shirts covering bald heads.

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